Fernão Lopes - Chief chronicler of the Kingdom of Portugal

The memory of the Portuguese throne

Fernão Lopes is considered the Father of Portuguese historiography and one of the main figures of medieval literature. He was born in Lisbon around 1380 and was a clerk and official chronicler of the kingdom of Portugal and the fourth chief guard of Torre do Tombo. In 1434, he was decorated as Vassal of the king, a title only granted to a person of extreme trust by the king. He remained the chief guard of Torre do Tombo until 1454.

D. Duarte, son of King D. João I and D. Filipa de Lencastre, long before taking the throne, concerned about preserving the memory of the kingdom and the people, began to record the traditions of the kingdom. The monarch began a vast undertaking of a historiographical nature with the aim of building a royal memory of Portugal. In 1418, the king appointed Fernão Lopes to the position of chief chronicler of the kingdom.

Historical context

Humanism expressed the deep belief in man as head of his destiny, breaking with the strong influence of the Church and religious thought. Started in Italy, the movement spread throughout Europe. In Portugal, the date that marks the beginning of humanism is the year 1418, when Fernão Lopes was appointed guardian of the State archives. His historical chronicles became a landmark of humanism in Portugal.

The Portuguese writer acted within a context close to events that were recent in the memory of the Portuguese people. The most significant were the Crisis of 1383-1385 and the Battle of Aljubarrota (1385). The battle innovated military tactics, allowing dismounted men-at-arms to be able to defeat powerful cavalry. In the diplomatic field, it allowed the alliance between Portugal and England, which lasts until today.

The Avis Revolution

During the Late Middle Ages, In Portugal, the Avis Revolution took place, from 1383 to 1385. Also known as the 1383 Crisis, it refers to the succession of events and conflicts that took place in Portugal and that resulted in the end of the Afonsina Dynasty and the beginning of the Avis Dynasty. The main consequence was the weakening of monarchical power in the face of localist pressures that still survived in the small territorial circumscriptions of the Kingdom and the coronation of João, Master of Avis, as D. João I and King of Portugal in the year 1385.

The first dynasty, also known as Afonsina or Burgundy, was founded by D. Afonso Henriques, who proclaimed himself king in 1139, and continued until D. Fernando I, who died in 1383, giving rise to a succession crisis that was only resolved with the emergence of a new succession line.

The significant importance of the Avis Revolution is related to the consolidation of Portugal as a nation and the removal of Castile's intentions to annex Portugal to its territory. The victory over the kingdom of Castile definitively established the independence of Portugal, under the command of Dom João I. The support of the commercial bourgeoisie was decisive, as it helped to provide the necessary financial resources for the maintenance of the Army. The dynasty lasted until the death of Cardinal-King D. Henrique on January 31, 1580, without leaving a legitimate heir.

In the political aspect, D. João I was strengthened as king of Portugal with the recognition of the legitimacy of the Avisina dynasty through the signing of the Treaty of Windsor, in 1386, between Portugal and England and his marriage to D. Filipa de Lencastre. It resolved the dispute that divided the Kingdom of Portugal from the Kingdom of León and Castile, paving the way under the Avis Dynasty for one of the most important periods in the history of Portugal, the Age of Discovery.

Popular, D. João I, succeeded D. Duarte, a king more allied to the aristocracy. The feudal power of the sons of D. João I grew and with it the dominance of the nobility, which had been seriously shaken by the independence crisis. Soon after the death of D. Duarte, there was the civil war, the insurrection in Lisbon against the widowed queen D. Leonor of Aragão and the election of Infante D. Pedro.

Certainly, Fernão Lopes had contacted testimonies of the events, as these events were reported in his Chronicle of D. João I, from 1443. In this way, he consulted the protagonists involved in the resistance against Castile and in the peace signed in 1411 with the same kingdom, through the Treaty of Ayllón, ratified in 1423. Thus, D. Duarte appointed Fernão Lopes to write down the deeds of the Avis dynasty.

Renovator of the historical chronicle

Fernão Lopes stood out from his predecessors for inheriting classical, French, and Iberian traditions and for giving significant importance to the critical analysis of history and documental evidence of events, to report the facts as they really happened, with truth and objectivity, purging partial opinions, rhetorical exaggerations, and legends.

In an innovative way, he presented the people as an important historical agent, minimizing the almost exclusive role of kings and the aristocracy. Therefore, he is considered a renovator of the historical chronicle genre. Lopes was one of the forerunners of scientific historiography and the founder of Portuguese historiography.

Fernão Lopes had considerable intellectual baggage, a humanist sensibility and an agile and engaging literary style. His work was based on orality and the popular universe, without discarding erudite references. Of his various works, only the chronicles of D. Pedro, D. Fernando and D. João I remain.

Characteristics of his writing

Fernão Lopes had a personal style of writing, for which he became a landmark in medieval literature. He emphasized popular features over the usual protagonism. His colloquial language attracted many admirers, people who supported his way of writing and gave more value to his work, especially historical chronicles. Even though his prose began in the period of troubadourism, he only gained notoriety during humanism.

Contemporary with the rise of the Avis Dynasty to the throne of Portugal, Fernão Lopes felt the strength of the people in the struggle for freedom and considered this aspect in the process of historical development. The history of a people, in his view, was not just made up of the exploits of kings and knights, but also of popular movements and economic forces. In addition to the environment of the courts, he also described the villages, street rebellions, wars, the suffering of the population and the joy of his people's victories.

The care in substantiating the version of events, resorting to narrative or documentary sources, gave him the credibility he deserved. Fernão also wrote works in prose with high literary quality. Some pages that served as a model and style were those that described the Revolution of 1383, based on reports from people who had witnessed the revolutionary events of 1383 to 1385.

Work method

For Fernão Lopes, affection is inherent to the human condition, which escapes rational control. Thus, he considers that the narrator's passions and certain influences and psychological and social predispositions modify the narrative, which would imply a difficulty in apprehending the truth. Hence the need for the chronicler-historian to control mundanall afeiçom (worldly affections, a broad category which included man's psychological, social, and political predispositions and conditioning), to guarantee the space of autonomy of historical discourse, separating the desires and interests. In this way, he understands that the attributes of the chronicler must be impartiality and authority.

Even inferring that mundanall afeiçom affects all men, he understands that it changes according to social groups at diverse levels of subjectivity. Thus, he analyzes worldly affection into two groups:

Those of the manorial order, closer to the king - it would be characterized by traditional values attached to servility to the king and to the panegyric model, conferring a partiality and an artificiality that could distort reality. A panegyric was, originally, in ancient Greece, the eulogy or laudatory speech that was pronounced in large festive gatherings of the people. In ancient Rome, the speech that the Roman consuls pronounced before the emperor, after being elected, was called "panegyric", expressing their respect and admiration.

The most distant from the noble order and from the king - would be the bearers of the "naked truth", as their mundanall afeiçom would correspond to the bonds of affection and natural passions of man, therefore, disconnected from artificiality and ceremonies of servility.

Major works

The author managed to unite history and literature. He produced several works through a simple language and full of dialogues. Of the chronicles he wrote about the history of Portugal, only three remain with certainty:

Chronicle of D. Pedro I (1434),

Chronicle of King Fernando (1436)

Chronicle of D. João I (1443) (first and second part)

There is also a narrative that talks about the first seven kings of Portugal, known as Chronicle of 1419 – a set of narratives about the first seven kings of Portugal. According to some scholars, it would also be a work of authorship by him.

Much more controversial is the authorship of the Chronicle de D. Afonso IV, the Chronicle of D. Afonso III or D. Sancho II and the Chronicle of count D. Henrique. His authorship of the Chronicle of the Constable, which was postulated for some time, is now entirely discredited.

The Chronicle of D. João I, which has the king as the protagonist, is a document, as far as it intends to record and be proof of the facts considered worthy of memory. It is also a monument, as it intends to permanently establish the exaltation of royal deeds, with the construction of tombs, the foundation of royal chapels and the building of royal palaces such as that of Sintra or the Monastery of Battle.

Fernão Lopes remained the official chronicler of the kingdom until 1448 when King D. Afonso V (1438-1481) appointed Gomes Eanes de Azurara as the chief chronicler of the Kingdom.

Biography

Fernão Lopes was born in Lisbon around 1380. He was a clerk and chief chronicler for the Kingdom of Portugal. For more than 20 years, he recorded the memory of the people and the kingdom from the first dynasty (Afonsina or Burgundy) to the reign of King João I (Avis). He was considered the greatest historical chronicler of Portugal.

Of humble origin, nothing is known about his intellectual formation, but his professional path is known. The first record of him dates to 1418 when he was appointed guardian of the Torre do Tombo archive, the Regio Archive, in Lisbon. Between 1419 and 1433 he was secretary to D. João I, the first king of the second royal dynasty - the Avis Dynasty.

In 1419, he was cited as the scribe of the books of King João I, and it must have been around this time that King Duarte commissioned him to put the deeds of the Portuguese kings in the form of chronicles. In a charter of 1422, he appears with the function of scribe of the purity of Infante D. Fernando.

The last known information about him is that he was still alive in 1459, when he contested the rights of an illegitimate grandson to his inheritance. His death date is uncertain. According to information in the preface to the Chronicle of El-Rei D. Pedro I, written by Luciano Cordeiro, after leaving the role of chief guard, Fernão Lopes would have lived for another five years, dying at close to 80 years of age.